


To steal what she never could own

by sshysmm



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Genre: (I'm talking about the clitoris guys), (only if Tenoch took on board the lessons Luisa told him to), (well a speeder), AU where Cassian and Jyn are the same age, Angst, Cassian is Tenoch Iturbide, Drugs, F/M, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, Pre-Canon, Sex in a Car, Smoking, Tanith Ponta gets to frolic this time, The Tenoch fic, also there's angst, because of course, for a certain value of frolic, sex on glitterstim, you terrible people encourage me to do terrible things
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-13
Updated: 2017-08-13
Packaged: 2018-12-15 01:32:10
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,827
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11795649
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sshysmm/pseuds/sshysmm
Summary: Tanith Ponta's stuck on a dead-end planet that's been recently occupied by the Empire; now she wants off-world as quickly as possible. This requires credits, which requires the use of light fingers.Tanith's just spotted a likely mark across the street: young, dumb and full of cum. Or so she thinks. She's only partially right...---After the DJ Jimmy fic, ohstardustgirl planted the seeds of a Tenoch fic. And this fic did not want to be written. This is the sixth attempt and only a fraction of the various pages written in various AUs. But thanks to OCaptain_MyCaptain, something finally clicked (it relied on the hat, no doubt) and now I bring you filthy porn. I'm ignoring the canon age difference, because there was no way to make it work, so imagine they're the same age here.





	To steal what she never could own

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ohstardustgirl](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ohstardustgirl/gifts), [OhCaptain_MyCaptain](https://archiveofourown.org/users/OhCaptain_MyCaptain/gifts).



> Title, as usual is from lyrics. This time it's 'Waterfall' by The Stone Roses:
> 
> Chimes sing Sunday morn  
> Today's the day she's sworn  
> To steal what she never could own  
> And race from this hole she calls home...

She’d been watching him for some time now. Ostensibly scoping him out as a target. But really, she knew all she needed to know in one glance; the rest was detail as a distraction.

The single glance had told her: young, oblivious, baggy trousers that were easy to pick, and something laced through the tabac he smoked that would dim his reactions.

But the details compelled her to wait, and watch.

His body formed a diagonal as he leant against the wall, sunlight catching his bare shins and glinting off his chrono whenever he lifted a hand to adjust the roll of tabac in his lips. Under the shady brim of his hat he kept fidgeting with the small twist of paper, wrapping his lips around it in experimental ways: she watched his cheeks hollow as he sucked on it; followed the puffs of smoke as he sent them from the ‘o’ of his mouth. He’d take short, sharp breaths, trying to recapture the smoke, sucking again on the tabac in a way that made her grow even warmer inside the protective layers of her long scarf and cloak.

Tanith forced her eyes down to the cheap mug of tarine tea in front of her. The tea-shop was the perfect place to scope out this sleazy little street, but if she stared too long at one person she’d draw her own unwanted attention. She tightened her grip on the mug’s handle and watched white lines bloom from within her thumb knuckle, trying to concentrate on any sensation other than the heat that was spreading fast from her chest: up her neck like a caress, and down, lower in her torso, sparking something awake that had lain dormant for longer than she liked to think about.

A shout rang out through the sleepy morning bustle and she let her eyes track upwards once more, knowing it had come from her mark.

He’d tipped his hat back a little and thrown some remark at one of the older women winding her way through the thin crowds. Tanith’s gaze found her, paused with an incredulous smile in the centre of an impatient stream of ugnaughts. She stood a little hunched, seemingly unconfident in her own skin, the handle of her over-the-shoulder bag gripped in both hands. But she grinned at the boy Tanith had been watching and called back something else in the same dialect.

The boy laughed and shrugged, pushing himself off the wall and spreading his arms wide in an offering. His object of interest giggled too, but turned away, wagging a finger along with her parting words.

Tanith looked again: the oversized blue shirt he wore was unbuttoned to halfway down his chest, revealing smooth, bronzed skin. When the woman he’d addressed kept walking, he settled back against the wall, amusement crinkling his eyes and a dimple pinching the edge of his mouth. Tanith wondered again whether he’d come from one of the brothels further down the street, trying to ply his trade in a brighter patch of the old city; somewhere he could show off his long brown legs in the bright light that pushed its way around the corner of the building. But then surely he should have been disappointed that the woman hadn’t stopped?

She was enjoying he puzzle of his story, Tanith told herself. That was all. She was just looking for clues as to who he was and why he was loitering on that street corner in her line of sight. She was looking for them in way his thick hair curled dark and sweat-streaked around the back of his neck, and in the way his hips bucked as he readjusted his stance against the wall.

His long fingers worked quickly and smoothly in the production of a new stick of tabac and then his hand dipped in his pocket and he glanced around.

Tanith nearly dropped the mug she’d forgotten she’d raised to her lips: his furtive glance fell on her and his mouth parted in a thin, dangerous smile as he lifted something from his pocket and sprinkled it into the twist of tabac.

She put the mug down as slowly as she could with suddenly shivering hands and looked away, pulling her scarf up around her face: an automatic response to protect her identity, but also a way of hiding the flush that lit up her cheeks. Tanith studied the worn stone table top and tried not to think of the pink flash of his tongue on his lips; tried not to let the thought slip into imagining him licking the tabac paper before he rolled it together…what else he might be able to do with it and those clever fingers.

Her knees and thighs pressed together under the table and she swallowed dryly, finally risking a glance around the street, trying to seem casual. But she was now furious at him; furious at herself. Tanith resolved that she’d get her own back by emptying his pockets even if he didn’t have any creds in them.

Stubbornly, she sipped at her cold tea, waiting for him to move. He seemed intent on basking in the half-sun all morning, smoking and doing nothing except winding her up into a tense knot of jealous regrets. Tanith swilled the dregs of tea in her mug as a grubby pair of stormtroopers wound through the street on their hourly patrol. Everyone around them continued about their business, but in a suddenly self-conscious, stilted manner for the moments when the occupiers passed close by.

For once Tanith’s mark held his mouth very still on his ever-present tabac, barely inhaling as smoke gathered under the brim of his nerf-herder’s hat. The troopers looked neither at him nor at Tanith; nor, particularly at anyone in the street around them. The Empire was complacent here; the city was old and quiet and the planet was largely peaceful. With the government subdued, the Empire relied on everyone else to just continue pressing on with their hopes of a normal, uninterrupted life. For Tanith, a normal, uninterrupted life meant being as far away from the Empire and those who resisted it as possible. Their presence meant that she needed to move on soon. And that meant that she needed enough creds to get off this sun-baked dust world.

She narrowed her eyes and watched her mark’s gaze follow the troopers partway down the street. His stance had finally lost the ease he’d maintained all morning, but he made a show of finishing his tabac nonetheless. Then, finally, he let the stub of paper drop from his lips to the ground and flattened it under his shoe.

Tanith’s muscles coiled, but she made herself take one last sip of old tea, hiding her face from him as he left the spot by the wall and began to walk towards the jumbled market place at the bright, central end of the street.

With his back to her, she put the mug down and ducked into the dark alley that passed alongside the tea-shop. The air was cool and damp in the narrow passage that was never touched by the planet’s hot sun, and her feet moved lightly across rocky bits of ground, not leaving boot prints in the soft red earth.

Tanith swiftly circled the edge of the market place and emerged again into the blinding daylight at the edge of the stalls. She eyed the crowds and soon spotted his wide-brimmed brown hat and blue shirt. He was moving in her direction, and she repressed a shiver of apprehension when she realised how much taller he was than he’d seemed just leaning against the wall. Never mind — she’d made her decision. She was already being drawn towards him through the crowds of shoppers.

Tanith slipped between other beings like a shadow, one hand always over her own small pouch of credits in protection of them. She ducked her head and pulled up her scarf, giving the crystal necklace below it a squeeze through the layers of cloth.

As she passed by him she caught a distant scent of pine and something sharply chemical below the tabac smoke. Her hand was in and out of his pocket without so much as brushing the material, whilst he was jostled on the other side by the swaying gait of a hurrying gamorrean. She smiled to herself: perfect timing. The invasion of personal space and the smell of him up close raised goosebumps on her skin as adrenaline surged through her.

Tanith had taken only a couple of steps before a strong grip found her wrist and she was pulled back, forced to spin and face whatever had anchored her.

She sucked in an angry breath, feeling her eyes go wide above the fabric that covered her nose and mouth. The oblivious, tabac-smoking boy was gone, and she saw a sharp wit in his features now. His hold on her was confident enough that he didn’t seem angry, but rather curious. Her mark leaned forward to examine her, eyes dark and unreadable in the shade of his hat.

Tanith pulled at his grip and prepared to lash out with a boot when his eyes flickered up beyond her shoulder and widened. He reached out with another hand and pulled her by the shoulder, bringing her close to him and trapping her kick before she could raise a leg. Before her confusion could find a new outlet, he was spinning the two of them, shouting out to the crowd as a wave of hot, dusty air pushed at Tanith’s back.

She tried to twist her head to see what was happening behind her, whilst the man she’d just stolen from ushered her forward, his hand in the small of her back and her wrist free of the grip he’d stopped her with.

She still had his creds and whatever else had been in his pocket; this could be her chance to flee — Tanith twisted as if to turn and run in another direction, but his hand responded instantly, fingers clawing into the material of her clothes as his hold worked around to her waist. She was pressed against his body, and both of them had to slow their pace as she struggled, her shoulder bumping against his chest and armpit.

In her struggle, Tanith finally caught a glimpse behind them, however. The market seemed to be dissolving into ever-growing clouds of red dust, and now she heard the rumble of explosives through the shouts of vendors and shoppers around them. When she slowed now it was to look closer: to see how close to them the dust-muffled flashes of grenades were and to try and work out who was attacking. Through it all, the man she’d spent the morning scoping out pulled her onwards, steering them through the flow of panicked beings until they came to the edge of the market.

The stream of people grew confused here, swirling and eddying as the crowd disagreed over which exit to take. Stormtroopers began to fill the adjoining streets, rushing to the source of the disturbance, and Tanith felt more trapped than ever before. Her ragged breathing moved the material that covered her face, and she could still taste dust and sweat and fear on the air that got through the loose-woven thread. Her tall captor moved his head sharply, looking for some exit that she couldn’t see from her lesser height. He didn’t once loosen his grip, but even if she’d fought back now, the crush of people was such that she wouldn’t have been able to get away any distance at all.

He cast one last look at the stormtroopers, causing a deep, straight line to appear between his brows. His mouth turned down in a grimace and he finally looked at her again. “You want to get away from the stormtroopers?”

She nodded minutely despite herself, her eyes round, worry tensing every muscle in her face.

He nodded back and turned her to face the direction they’d come from. It was hard work, moving against the crowd, and even when Tanith glanced up to where part of the market was obscured by smoke and dust she couldn’t tell what the situation was. Slowly, person by person, they pushed their way back towards the alley she’d come through originally: few people used it as their escape, choosing to move away from the cheap old city and its reputation for pickpockets and aggressive soliciting.

Tanith’s mark never fell far behind her, even as she squeezed and elbowed her way through gaps that seemed barely big enough for her small frame. His touch was ever-present on her back and shoulders: pushing, prodding, occasionally gripping and entangling in her clothes. She grew accustomed to it, so that she didn’t initially remember to object when they both finally emerged into the dank little passage, feet squelching in the soft ground, and his hands still insistently maintaining his touch on her.

A few steps into the quieter street and she’d soon recovered herself though. Tanith stopped and span towards him, fists raised. “Stop that!”

He cringed and shushed her, reaching out again and then having to dodge her punch; his eyes a white glint in the gloomy alley.

Tanith was surprised at his reactions, but didn’t show it. She backed away another step, knowing that when she reached the tea-shop and the street she’d observed him on originally, she’d have a chance to lose him by running off through the maze of backstreets, up the hill to the most ancient part of the city.

As she felt the warmth of the sun on her back, nearing the end of the alley, the man lunged again, managing to catch hold of her shoulders and trying to pull her towards him: Tanith grabbed him back, taking fist-holds in his baggy blue shirt and forcing him back against one of the alley walls. He didn’t resist; hadn’t seemed like he’d been trying to fight her at all.

Then, accompanied by an icy shiver down her spine, Tanith heard the modified voice of a stormtrooper. “Everything alright here?”

She felt her mark chuckle breathlessly, his chest warm against the edges of her fists. “Of course, officer. Just, uh, just a lover’s tiff.”

Tanith looked up at him with mortified horror, but his hands were still on her upper arms and she couldn’t step away.

“ID. Now,” the trooper ordered.

“My girlfriend carries it for both of us,” he shrugged, offering the trooper a smile that he then turned on her with an urgent look in his eyes. “In her pockets.”

She swallowed and unballed her fists slowly, letting his shirt drop and reaching one hand into her pouch for her own ID, and another into the pocket where she’d hidden his things. She handed the two pieces of flimsiplast to the trooper, glancing down at the name _Tenoch Iturbide_ as she did so.

The trooper scanned each one as his patrol-mates looked on, blasters held loosely at their hips. The sounds from the market place grew behind them, and some of the troopers twitched, anxious to get to where the action was.

Finally, the commander handed the IDs back to Tanith, and she managed a flash of relief that her false records still held out under scrutiny. “Get back to your quarters. This city’s under lockdown until the insurgents have been found,” he told them.

Both muttered breathy sounds of thanks, and watched in silence as the column of dust-speckled white uniforms jogged into the dark alley, heading for the market place.

“Can I at least have my ID back?” the man called Tenoch finally asked her. He leaned against the wall out of exhaustion and relief now, but when she surveyed him the memory of his languid movement in the morning sun returned. She let her eyes linger a little too long on the way his distressed shirt revealed a triangle of skin at his waist; on the low ‘v’ that showed the smattering of dark, curling hairs he’d started to grow on his chest.

Tanith took his ID from her pocket again and turned it over, examining it. It looked legitimate; but then so did hers. “Why were _you_ so keen to get away from the troopers?” she asked, keeping the ID between her fore- and middle fingers.

The smirk of surprise that her heavy gaze had brought to his face didn’t falter. He shrugged lightly and put his hands in his trouser pockets, tilting his head back to survey her. “Maybe I had things in my pockets I didn’t want to report as missing?”

Tanith withdrew a small, drawstring bag and held it on her palm. “What is it?”

Quick as a flash he plucked it from her, and she immediately repocketed the ID, readying herself for a fight again.

“Calm down, calm down,” he laughed, raising one hand in supplication. With deft movements, his fine fingers plucked the drawstring loose and showed her a dark, blue-black powder sparkling inside the synthskin.

“It looks like glitterstim,” she murmured, peering forward and eyeing him suspiciously. A twist of disappointment worked through her; if he was a spice-head she didn’t care to know any more about him, appealing though much else was.

“It is, but it’s weak,” he said quickly, watching her face and responding to her sudden doubt. “It makes you more aware of your surroundings; just a pinch in tabac, not enough to get you addicted or anything. Not enough for the telepathic effects to take hold. But it means you kind of…know things. That’s why I knew you’d robbed me, even though I didn’t feel a thing.”

Tanith met his eyes. They were wide and innocent, so she could make out their warm shades of brown. Was that meant to be a compliment?

He smiled, and that dimple reappeared by his mouth.

“Here,” he said, moving quickly to draw a paper and a pinch of tabac from the pocket she’d not emptied. “Hold this,” he handed the pouch of glitterstim back to her and his expert hands set to work on rolling another two twists of tabac together, sprinkling a dusting of glitterstim into each.

Tanith watched, and waited, feeling her pulse quicken when the skin of his fingers brushed her palm as he reached for the little pouch. She caught herself with her mouth a little open, and berated herself internally for letting her interest in him show so clearly. She’d only meant to pick his pockets. She’d been going to get her own back on him by doing that, punishing him for making her feel such a strong _want_ for the first time in months. Since she’d left her last gang.

But if he noticed her breath grow heavy, Tenoch said nothing. He just continued to smile and prepare the tabac, eventually taking his glitterstim pouch back and handing her a roll in return.

She lifted it to her lips, feeling the dampness from where he’d licked the paper to bind it and watching him raise a small light to his own twist of tabac.

The glow from its tip brought out the contours of his face under the shade of his hat, and Tanith stood transfixed at the deepening dimple in his cheek as his smile widened around the tabac. Slowly, he put the lighter back in his pocket and bent towards her, the long fingers of his left hand coming up to graze slowly along her jawline, tilting her head towards him. He leaned close and touched the tip of his stick of tabac to her unlit one, and she inhaled, her eyes locked on his, unable to look away.

With a quiet crackle, her own stick of tabac took life from his, and she felt the sweet, astringent smoke wreathe in and around her. Tenoch’s hand lingered at her jaw, and with her first breath of the stuff, she felt a calm certainty when looking at him: this was a man who hated the Empire. A man who didn’t mean her any harm.

Then she blinked and the tabac nearly dropped from her lips. Under his hatred of the Empire, under his relief to be free of the stormtroopers, and just as certain as the rest: her own want was radiated back at her, a mirror of her imagination that brushed curiously up against her perception of herself. She was suddenly conscious of another person’s admiration for her pale green eyes; his fascination with the swell of her lips; a soft image, the tentative outline of her body beneath her heavy clothes.

Heat swept up Tanith’s neck and cheeks again, partly as she imagined him imagining his hands on her skin, but partly because she realised he must have known she’d been watching him that whole time. He must have picked up on her own mind’s wandering fantasies as she sat outside that café, dreaming of the opportunity to just indulge, damn the consequences.

Tenoch drew his tabac from his mouth, and her eyes dropped again to his lips: the way they glistened in the wake of his tongue, slightly apart.

She took a swift drag on her own tabac and plucked it free, standing on tip-toes to meet his kiss; letting her full body press against him as he caught her, one hand on her face and neck, the other wrapped around her back. She squirmed to get her arms up and around his shoulders, pushing her chest and hips against him so that a moan boiled from his mouth into hers. Their tongues slid impatiently against each other, and Tanith let her teeth catch at his upper and lower lips, losing all sense of whether she was standing on firm ground or suspended inches above it, held up in his grip.

They paused for air, and she could feel his hardness between them, a warm pressure just above her hip. “What was that about returning to our quarters?” she managed to force the words out in a rush between her uneven breaths.

Tenoch, his eyes now dark with unapologetic desire, nodded. “Yeah, um, there’s a place nearby…”

She let him lead, sucking idly on the twist of tabac she still held: it was a distraction from the cold that flowed over her body when she stepped away from him; from the empty ache deep inside her. Tanith had done a lot of reckless things in her short life; this one might take the prize though, at least for the most unabashedly selfish thing she’d ever done.

The glitterstim told her without doubt that Tenoch was similarly unaccustomed to picking up unknown women who ogled him and then tried to rob him. He glanced back with a nervous, excited grin as they wound through the lower streets of the old city, heading for the walls and the precipice above the surrounding plains.

At a gap in the old redbrick wall, Tenoch scrambled over the rubble and Tanith followed, pausing momentarily to look at the vista below: miles and miles of empty plains, hazy blue fog settling over the odd scrubby tree or plant. Just beyond the walls there was a beat-up old speeder parked in the lee of a rocky outcrop; it wasn’t at all visible from the city’s interior.

“Are you serious?” she laughed, pulling back on his hand minutely.

Tenoch looked momentarily worried, but then his reassuring smile returned. “Sure, why not?”

She sensed there was something he wasn’t mentioning about the speeder — it didn’t just belong to him? — but he was so confident that they wouldn’t be disturbed, and the wet heat between her legs was growing overpowering. Tanith closed the slight distance between them and threw aside the stub of her tabac, reaching up to kiss him again.

They stumbled over the uneven ground until her back met the side of the speeder. Tenoch’s hands — as good as she’d hoped they’d feel — moved between her face and her chest, squeezing her breasts through her clothing and then dropping to her waistline to pull her shirt free from her trousers. An incoherent plea escaped from the back of her throat as his touch worked over her belly, under her top, clambering to the underside of her bra band to smooth fingertips over the thin material, teasing at her hard nipples. She groaned into his mouth again and reached around him, gripping his arse and pulling him close so that she could grind her hips up against his cock.

He rocked against her, kissing her deeply, his tongue pressing hard against hers in a way that she wished he’d press it against her clit. When he freed one hand from her she whined in disappointment, but there was a distant-sounding electronic click, and then he was manoeuvring the two of them around the speeder to the empty trunk space, lifting her easily so that she sat on its edge. She wrapped her legs around him, pulling him off-balance so that her back crashed down against the inside of the trunk, with Tenoch’s body now above her, his mouth moving in nips and licks down her neck, his knees struggling for purchase on the edge of the trunk as he pushed his hips against her.

Tanith scooted further back into the speeder, pulling him after her with hands tight on his arse again. An appreciative sound hummed through his lips as he buried his face within her scarf, kissing the base of her throat, his breath teasing goosebumps from her skin. Impatiently, she pulled the material aside, fidgeting to free it from her shoulders. Tenoch pushed himself off her to let her manage this more easily, scrambling backwards out of the trunk and meeting her eyes with a mischievous grin and he started to undo her bootlaces.

By the time she’d untangled her scarf and slipped her precious kyber crystal necklace off — she hid it in a pocket of her vest, which she also removed, pushing it aside, but not so far from her that it was out of reach — Tenoch had pulled her boots off and clambered back into the speeder, kissing her and greedily sliding his hands across the sides of her body, helping her guide her shirt up over her head.

As soon as her shirt was gone he plunged his face towards her breasts, his breath hot down her cleavage, mouth sucking and nipping at each swell down to the edge of her bra band. She let herself groan again, throwing her head back and pushing against his mouth as his fingers worked at the clasp on her back.

He fumbled at it for a few moments until she reached around to release it herself, and then as soon as the bra band fell into her lap he caught one of her nipples in his mouth, sucking and flicking his tongue over the hard, sensitive tip. His hands felt like they were all over her, smoothing hot lines across her ribs and up and around her back and sides, one eventually rising to cup the breast his mouth wasn’t on, his fingers pinching and twisting at that nipple until her patience gave out and she pulled his face up to her again, kissing him hungrily as she began to work at the fastenings of her own belt and trousers.

His hat had slipped back on his head, and he finally removed it, moving away from her momentarily to pull his own shirt off too. Neither said a word, but the effects of the sprinkle of glitterstim endured: with every ecstatic touch of his lips on her skin, Tanith sensed Tenoch’s own excitement; she knew it worked the other way around too, taking in his smooth torso and abandoning the fastenings of her trousers to lean forward and drop a line of nips from his collarbone to his navel.

Tenoch pulled her up to fold her into another engulfing kiss and they both shivered as their naked chests met. Finally, finally his hands found her waistband again and began to tug, completing the work she’d started. Messily, Tanith raised her body, shucking at the trousers with her hips as Tenoch pulled the material down her thighs.

She could smell her own excitement and saw his mouth drop open thirstily when it hit him too. He tugged at her trousers more insistently until she’d kicked one of the two legs fully free, and then he moved her free leg aside, sliding a hand up the inside of her thigh and rubbing a line with his thumb over the damp material of her underwear.

Tanith stifled a curse and arched her back, propping herself on her elbows and exposing her throat to the roof of the speeder as Tenoch rubbed her again with his fingers and the heel of his hand. She let out a shuddering breath and pushed impatiently against his touch; he took the hint and grabbed the waistband of her underwear, peeling it slowly away from her skin. Achingly slowly. She clenched her teeth and felt sweat break out on her temples and chest as he stroked the inside of her thigh again, gradually drawing her pants out of the way.

At last he let his thumb push between her hot folds, dipping into the gathering wetness there and sliding a line up over her clit. Tanith gasped, looking down at him, and feeling the skin of her chest burn again as his eyes roved over her, thin lips quirking up into a wondering smile. He rubbed his digit gently over her clit at first, circling and adding pressure gradually, until he couldn’t wait any longer and moved forward to press his open mouth against her, sweeping over her with his tongue and pressing its tip against her so that she squirmed under him.

The glitterstim guided him as Tenoch tried to keep up with every fleeting thought she had: _there, now there, now more. Again. More._ Almost before it had occurred to her that she wanted it, he slid one finger and then another deep inside her, making her hips rise up again as he rubbed her gently, his tongue still working against her clit.

She felt dizzy, assailed with vertigo as Tenoch’s touch steadily built up the pressure inside her. It began to break free as a sound in the back of her throat, whimpers tumbling from her lips unevenly until his mouth left her and he clambered closer across her body, reaching so that his hand could still move within and against her. He drew the back of his free hand across his mouth and grinned before leaning down, kissing her and catching the sounds she made. His murmured shushes against her lips just wound her tighter, their mouths sloppy against each other, the taste of herself covering his tongue and face.

His thumb continued to move back and forth over and around her, flicking and pressing at her clit as she floundered, gasping at his mouth for air, her hands locked in the thick hair at the nape of his neck. Pulsating waves lifted her hips and arse from the scratchy surface of the speeder’s trunk, buffeting her into deep waters she had no control over. Tenoch kept his mouth on hers even as it opened wide, dragging his teeth across her lips and swallowing the hoarse curse that she let out.

Before the pulses within her had fully receded, he sat up quickly, one hand still sliding slowly over her, but the other fluttering to his own groin, hovering by the pressure in his trousers. He closed his eyes and bit his lip hard and the objection she’d had died on Tanith’s lips as she too sat up, willing him not to come yet.

She moved his hand off her and kneeled in front of him, taking his face in her hands and kissing him gently this time, pressing her lips to his and stroking his sweat-damp temples. After a moment he responded, opening his mouth and slowly pushing his tongue inside hers again.

Carefully, softly, Tanith undid the fastenings of his trousers and pushed them down, lifting the elastic of his pants away from his waist and pulling them away from his cock. He fidgeted and twisted so that he could drag the clothes off his body; he’d already kicked off his shoes.

She manoeuvred him onto his back and pushed his legs aside to kneel between them. Smirking at his pleading expression, she lowered herself slowly, first to kiss him and draw her hanging breasts across the skin of his chest.

His teeth snagged at his lower lip again. “Slowly,” he whispered, his eyes wide, vulnerable.

Tanith nodded, continuing to move back so that the hot line of his cock was threaded between her breasts. She pressed them together momentarily and he gasped before she moved on, finally taking hold of the stem of his cock and starting to lick around the base of the hard vein there.

Just as he must have felt it with her, the glitterstim seemed to open up possibilities in her mind. She followed its suggestions, licking the length of his cock and wrapping her mouth around its tip, her tongue fluttering over the slit at the end, pressing and teasing its way around the head. Slowly she moved her lips lower, gradually taking more of him into her mouth, growing more aware as she did so of the heat swelling again in her own body.

“Tanith,” he grunted, his hips rocking after she’d managed to work her lips to the base of his cock, feeling its head push against the back of her mouth.

“Mmm,” she replied, letting the sound’s vibrations run through her lips to the head of his cock as she withdrew her mouth.

He made another helpless sound, but she picked up on what he wanted to say: he wanted to be inside her. Fire bloomed in her stomach and she released his cock from her mouth, crawling up his body again to kiss him, hard. “Yes,” she told him. “Yes, I want you inside me.”

Tenoch’s hands glided across her skin, squeezing at her breasts, arse, thighs. He swung an arm around her waist and the two of them grappled together as he flipped her onto her back, pushing his cock urgently against her wet slit. Forcing himself to slow down when she let out a desperate breath, he lifted himself up on his arms and guided the tip of his cock against her, sliding through her wetness and rubbing it unevenly against her clit.

Tanith made herself open her eyes, taking in his loosely dropped eyelids, the soft, asymmetrical ‘o’ formed by his open mouth, and the way strands of his long brown hair clung to the sweat on his forehead. She looked down at the pink head of his cock thrusting up through her hair, slick with the evidence of her own desire, and an urgent mewl crept out of her mouth again.

A frown of concentration deepened on his forehead, and he pulled back and took a deep breath, looking down at her as though he was trying to remember every detail. Slowly, he pushed his hips forwards, his cock pressing the folds of her aside, filling her smoothly. She raised her hips into it, groaning and pushing back against him.

Tenoch lowered himself again, his lips finding hers, trembling needily against her mouth as he began to grind his hips against her. She grabbed them, one hand one each side of him, pulling him harder against her as he increased the speed of his movements.

Their mouths and teeth marked trails along each other’s necks, Tenoch once taking the lobe of Tanith’s ear in his mouth and sucking hard on it so that an utterly unfamiliar growl crawled from her throat. She gripped him with her thighs, feeling her nipples drag against the skin of his chest as he flattened himself to her, burying his sweaty forehead against her neck and shoulder.

They had no need to doubt each other: Tanith wasn’t stupid enough to take risks in a galaxy as messed up as the one she found herself in. Through the glitterstim, Tenoch sensed her certainty and he raised himself on his arms again, before putting his weight on his knees as she lifted her pelvis up to him, opening to him as he thrust hard. The white shards of stone that formed his short necklace rattled as they bounced against his collarbones and his eyes tightened shut, the frown line between his brows lengthening as his mouth hung open.

Tanith reached a hand down, parting the hair above her clit to rub at it and basking in the awareness the glitterstim gave her of Tenoch’s own pleasure. She felt herself coming again even as his own movements slowed and grew erratic, his face slackening as he finally let himself go inside her, his lips moving silently over words he probably wasn’t even aware of.

Finally letting out a satisfied groan, he lowered himself into her arms again, nuzzling his face against her neck and jawline and murmuring in a language she didn’t recognise. Tanith sighed happily and ran her fingers along the soft channel of his spine, feeling his sweat grow cool already in the slight breeze that came across the plains.

When he shifted away from her it felt too soon; she wanted to lie oblivious to the galaxy; to the trouble in the city; to all the problems she still faced in getting enough credits to get off this newly unpredictable rock. But as they cleaned themselves up in silence and Tenoch rolled two more glitterstim-laced twists of tabac, she resolved to cling onto this sense of timelessness. She accepted the tabac from him and leaned towards him so he could light it. As he turned to fling the lighter back on top of his crumpled trousers he paused, and took up the nerf-herder’s hat he wore with a mischievous grin.

Shyly, he raised it and placed it on her head, securing it down against her rumpled, sweat-streaked hair with a flush of appreciation rising to his cheeks.

Tanith smirked at him and shuffled closer, holding the hat in place and adjusting its angle as they both lay back together. She nestled into the crook of his arm and stared at the ceiling of the speeder, beyond the brim of the hat, watching the smoke from the tabac rise and settle there briefly before it dissipated.

Maybe she’d give him back those credits she’d stolen, she mused.

“Why don’t you come with us,” he replied quietly, the sound of his voice still making her twitch.

“Us?”

“Yeah. I’m…” that sense that the speeder wasn’t just his again. “I’m with a group. We’re helping the partisan cell here. We’re helping them resist the Empire.”

Ice crawled over Tanith’s skin at his words: she knew what was coming before he said it, and cursed herself for not having worked it out sooner.

“You’ve heard of a Rebel Alliance?” he asked, but the sudden nervousness in his voice told her he’d picked up on her response.

She sat up and looked at him apprehensively, raising a hand to secure the hat she still wore. “Not the Rebels,” she shook her head. “Don’t say that.”

“Why not?” he pushed himself up with his elbows, leaning close enough that she had to tamp down on the sudden desire to kiss him again.

Tanith shook her head miserably. She couldn’t go back to the Rebels. The Rebels had treated her no better than anyone else in the end. All was still as she’d always expected it to be: she was better off on her own. She was the only one she could truly trust.

Hurt and confusion leaked onto Tenoch’s expression and he mirrored her, shaking his head from side to side in disbelief. “Whatever happened…” he started to say.

“No,” she scooted away from him and reached for her clothes, unsure of where her sense of rejection ended and his began. She just knew she wasn’t ready to work with Rebels again. Not after Saw. Not after he’d dumped her, a child left to fend for herself. Furiously, the tried to clamp down on the thoughts, suddenly fearful of what Tenoch might learn about her. Who she really was, not just Tanith Ponta, who was apparently more impulsive and ruled more by desire than she could ever have guessed previously.

He looked panicked and instantly stubbed his tabac out on the sole of one of the discarded shoes at the edge of the speeder’s trunk. He flung it from the speeder and raised his hands in an apologetic gesture than hurt Tanith more than anything else he might have done at that point.

With her eyes suddenly prickling at his attempt to placate her she dipped her chin to her shoulder and removed the hat, holding it out to him as she turned further from Tenoch, grabbing for the end of her bra band and hurrying to put it on once he took the hat back from her.

Her mind was blank, buzzing as she pressed down on her emotions, hopping from the speeder to squirm back into her pants and trousers. The sharp stones beneath her bare feet felt reassuring: they produced a solid pain, anchored to something real that she could see.

Tenoch stayed in the speeder, scowling at a spot beyond his knees and fiddling with the brim of his hat. As she reached back in, dragging her vest and scarf towards her, he caught her eyes again.

“Help me understand? At least?”

Tanith paused, struck again by his vulnerability: the line of his frown that she could smooth away with a thumb; with a brush of her lips. The paler tones in his rich brown eyes that caught the lowering sun’s light; his bittern fingernails working at the seam on the brim of his hat; goosebumps forming on his summer-warm skin.

“I can’t,” she said hoarsely. Understanding would mean understanding why the name Jyn Erso could never be uttered in this galaxy: Tanith needed to remain Tanith and never again could she be Jyn. She shook her head apologetically again and stood back from the speeder, toeing her boots on and wrapping her scarf about her neck to cover the blooms of bruises that would surely be coming up already. She put one hand to the pocket where her kyber crystal was — Jyn Erso’s kyber crystal. _Lyra_ Erso’s kyber crystal. Her other hand went to the pocket where she’d stashed Tenoch’s credits earlier.

He tilted his head and grimaced miserably. “Please. Don’t.”

Tanith’s fist balled around the creds, pressing an imprint into her palm. She swallowed and withdrew his ID instead, spinning it through the air and into the speeder’s trunk. She turned and marched across the scubby ledge beyond the city walls, water filming over her vision so that she had to tread carefully over the rubble to get back inside the city.

She returned to the street she’d watched him from that morning, only admitting that she was crying when she had to swipe the saltwater away to avoid tripping over an ugnaught vendor. She paused and apologised, looking up momentarily.

The woman Tenoch had called to across the crowds that morning was watching her from the edge of the street. The woman’s hair was more rumpled than it had been earlier and her face was traced with smudges of dust and soot. But her shoulders were still hunched and her hands still gripped her bag straps. She gave Tanith a curious, scrutinising look, and then a tall man with a square jaw and thinning red hair took her by the elbow and they crossed the street, moving in the opposite direction to Tanith.

\---

Tenoch sat on the edge of the speeder’s trunk, smoking plain tabac and staring at the glitterstim he’d scattered in the dust and gravel below. He’d stamped it into the ground, eliminating all traces of Tanith’s boot prints. He didn’t care about her boot prints: he cared about the vividness of the memories he ran over and over in his mind. About the way their thoughts had mingled perfectly, desire twining together with generosity, a peerless encounter that he’d hoped to repeat many more times as he got to know who she was. As he let her know that he wasn’t actually Tenoch Iturbide, but Cassian Andor, a fast-rising talent in Rebel intelligence, and someone who was hiding under as many layers as he’d gathered that Tanith was.

He didn’t want to be in anyone else’s head the way he’d been in hers, and she’d been in his, for those all too short moments of bliss. He knew General Draven disapproved of glitterstim in the field, but General Cortéz thought it had its uses, and he’d been happy enough to follow her lead. Not now though; not any more.

He heard his superiors’ steps approaching across the gravel and let out a deep sigh, wishing that he heard only one set of footsteps: light with the practiced ease of a thief, a cautious step, but quick with relief to be returning to him.

“Hello, Tenoch!” General Cortéz’s warm voice rang out. He half-turned to peer through the speeder’s interior, watching them approach through the dust-smeared front screen.

The trunk smelled of sex, even with the door open and the cooling evening breeze coming in. Tenoch shrugged himself to its edge ruefully and hopped to the ground, wafting tabac smoke into the trunk half-heartedly.

He nodded to them and silently moved into the driver’s seat as Draven and Cortéz slung their bags into the trunk and shut the door. In the mirror Tenoch saw Draven’s nose scrunch; Cortéz smiled and raised her eyebrows.

“Well that was successful. Did the distraction down at the market work?” Cortéz asked, climbing into the front passenger seat.

Draven sat behind her and opened the speeder’s window, getting a datapad out and beginning the process of contacting their extraction team.

“Yeah,” Tenoch nodded. “Perfectly. All the troopers were heading for it, last I saw.”

Cortéz’s smile turned smug and she leaned back in her seat. “Did you notice anything else worth reporting?”

Tenoch manouevred the speeder over the uneven surface of the damaged wall, letting silence answer as the repulsors whined in protest. He thought of the surreptitious glances of green eyes above a large mug of tea: cheekbones that betrayed an otherwise impassive face with their reddish blush. Full lips parted against the mug, her tongue freeing the lower lip from where it clung momentarily to the ceramic edge. He shivered and took a deep drag of tabac, pinning his eyes to the road, above his tight, white knuckles on the wheel.


End file.
